Ramon asks in a comment on the GHOST boot disks for HP dc7700 (III) post;
Any way I can get both disks on 1 usb drive?
Below I go through the steps used to make a bootable USB drive and adding the files from the disks created from my IMG files.
How-to: Build yourself a bootable Ghost USB key
1.) Remove U3 and Format as FAT32 
(You don’t need reformat the disk at this stage as it is done at step 4.)
2.) Grab yourself the HP USB Tools. We’ll use the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool in this ‘how-to’ but grab both for your tool kit.
- HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool – v2.1.8 Rev.A [PCWorld]
- HP Drive Key Boot Utility –
v7.41.3790.07.41.3790.0 [HP]
3.) Format a floppy as an MS-DOS startup disk. You need to do this as my IMG files use IBMDOS (PC DOS) not MS DOS and the HP tool needs access to the MS-DOS startup files (MSDOS.SYS, IO.SYS, COMMAND.COM)
4.) Install and run the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool
Point to the DOS startup files on the floppy created in step 3.
5.) Copy the tools from the floppy built from your IMG file.
NOTE: Do not clobber the system fils that you added in step 4.
(MSDOS.SYS, IO.SYS, COMMAND.COM)
OR as we have moved onto the USB key we can use a bit more of the disk space and introduce some more functionality such as multiple network card driver options. A skeleton file can be downloaded from MediFire and unzipped straight onto the formatted thumbdrive — BootKey.zip (MediFire) Link updated 24-Apr-2008
hello
recently i heard frmo one of my friend that his system was formatted in just less than 10 mins.
is it really posible, he said that its name was ghost format, each system should have a seperate floppy of thet formatting cd made considering its configuration.
n y how i have a vague idea about it.
i want to know more abt it.
plz do reply me about it.
( formattin my hard disc in lesss than 10 mins)
The only problem I have found with this, is that it recognizes the “key = jump drive” as the c drive, so when I image it… it images the jump drive. I can not find a command that works to change the drive in autoexec.bat. Very strange.
I had the same problem. Its very simple…
If you are using ghost cast server set it to restore the image to drive 2 which should be your real c drive.
If you are using stand alone ghost use the command dst=2 (or 3) at the end. If you havent got the command here is one thats works for me:
@echo off
SET TZ=GHO+00:00
prompt $p$g
MOUSE.COM
c:
cd \ghost
echo Loading…
GHOST.EXE -clone,mode=pload,src=1:3\image.gho:1,dst=1:1 -sure -auto -fx
simply change it to:
GHOST.EXE -clone,mode=pload,src=1:3\image.gho:1,dst=2:1 -sure -auto -fx
or similar….
Hi,
Ive been following your posts for creating a USB bootdisk, however im having a few problems (that i wont go into)
Do you have – “BootKey.zip (MediFire)” Hosted anywhere else, or could you mail it to me please?
Thanks,
Luke.
Ps. Do you have a complete img for ghost+8256X? Or w/o the ghost.exe (I have this anyway)
Thanks,
luke.
@Luke
It seems that MediaFire have killed off Bootkey.zip
I’ll relocate a copy and post it again.
cheers
@Luke
Use the new link – http://www.mediafire.com/?tyhjtczcdf3
Ghost newbie very interested in joining the current century and creating the bootable Ghost USB key. Trying to create an image of HP dc7700 and want to know:
1. Will the BootKey.zip have the NDIS needed for Intel 82566DM?
2. Going forward, what tutorial can you point me to in order to add new NDIS drivers to the bootable USB key?
Thanks. Great blog! Can’t wait to see the opening ceremonies 888!
@Agur
The current download for the Intel 82566DM uses an e1000.dos (6-Feb-2008) so the NDIS in BootKey.zip should work. If it does not, download the drivers from the link above and update the e1000.dos file in the unpacked zip file.
Rather than explaining the adding of a totally new NDIS file in the comments I’ll do it as a new post.
cheers
How would I add more NIC drivers to the existing bootkey.zip? I have several different Dell & IBM computers.
Thanks
@Agur, @Ron
I have finally posted the details for adding additional Network cards to the USB key. This is outlined in Build yourself a bootable Ghost USB key II
cheers
@shiva
recently i heard frmo one of my friend that his system was formatted in just less than 10 mins.
Just yesterday we were restoring ‘for sale’ images onto HPd510 machines based on the WinXP restore CD that originally shipped with the machines. These images were taking approx 4 minutes to deploy to 10 machines per cycle using a dedicated 1GB network.
Your restore from the image will depend on the size of the image, the bandwidth of the restore media (CD, DVD, USB, Network, etc.) and the compression level of the image.
10 minutes does not sound unreasonable for a system restore image.
I had problem because I do not have a floppy drive and a floppy, finally solve it. Documented in my website.
Thankyou for the wonderful guide.
My USB drive is being shown as the C:drive. I used your code for autoexec file but it says it find the image.ghost
This is correct the USB drive is mapped as “C:”.
You will need to add ghost.exe as it is not include in the skeleton file due to licensing requirements.
using bootkey.zip i am getting BOOTMGR missing error. no one else seems to be having this problem though. any ideas on what it might be?
@nm This sounds as if the USB device has not been formatted as bootable (MS-DOS startup disk)
I had no problem at all. I just added autoexec.bat and ghost.exe file to USB pen drive.
This and the part 2 guide were fantastic. Thanks very much.
I had problems with it on a Dell e6410 until I removed the Mouse.com call from the Autoexec.bat, seems to be a model specific issue but just a heads up.
Try this, as simple as it gets for Ghost USB boot drives
https://rapidshare.com/files/4114323462/ghost_simple_boot_USB_maker.zip
Thanks for a great write up….
What do you do if you dont have a floppy drive to get the PCDOS files?